In the International dinning room for

a meet and greet with Cruise Critic.

The seas whilst we sailed were mostly slight, making the ship's movement hardly

noticeable.

I found shopping in Nha Trang better.

Power Lines in HCMC. I know they would not

pass inspection in Australia!

Photo of the map room in the basement of the
Presidential Palace of maps used in 1975 before
the surrender of South Vietnam.
We tried to do some shopping in the market
in HCMC but I found that the aisles were
very close and cluttered, even taking out the
equation of 6 or more people hanging off my
arms trying to get my attention and
possible sale! Paul managed to get his
polo shirts before I gave up and headed
outside. I am amazed with my lack of shopping
skills as I had always enjoyed the haggling in
other Asian countries.

We are outside the front of the Presidential
Palace in HCMC
The temp. on the day we were there was
around 30c and skies were clear and sunny.

Phu My

Phu My is a two hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City. Our tour took us into the city where we visited the Presidential Palace, Notre Damn Cathedral and Post Office. We drove through China Town and noticed several small shops packed with Christmas decorations. China Town is painted in dominant colours of red and gold.

Most of the road into HCMC had been under repair. I don't know how long the road builders had been working on it but it appeared to be over many months.

We arrived at the Formula 1 Building in Singapore
to discover the Singapore Marathon event had used the same building. It was chaos for everyone leaving their suitcases and collecting shuttle buses to the ship. Lucky it wasn't raining!
The shuttle buses took 45mins to arrive at the ship. The Diamond Princess sailed late. The broadcast from the Captain explained the ship had to take on the maxium fuel at Singapore for the voyage and the bunkering would delay the ship 2 hours. It is taking us a while to get used to the lay out of the ship. I am continually going the wrong way!

Ready to fly out to Singapore tomorrow

We are now packed and ready to fly out to Singapore tomorrow. I am mentally reviewing what I have packed and hopefully haven't missed anything. It will be 35 degrees when we catch the plane so we have both changed our travelling clobber from jeans to shorts, here's hoping the weather when we disembark in Sydney will be warm as well. Dog food shopping for our dog Gracie is done and we are hoping she will not miss us too much.....she will just have to get used to it considering our planned absence next year. I think Holly the beagle grand-dog will keep her distracted.
Hopefully my next post will be from Diamond Princess.

November 2010

November 2010
We are now into the second half of November and 15 days from embarking on the Diamond Princess in Singapore. Yesterday we saw our Travel Agent and picked up our hotel voucher and last minute details. As the Diamond Princess is too large to dock at the passenger terminal in Singapore, we need to check in at the Formula 1 Building and I suppose, be bussed to the container terminal to board the ship. We are fortunate to have a printer attached to the computer as all our cruise documents were emailed to us and need to be printed off.

Paul and I have now had our latest tetnus and whopping cough vaccinations and I am now checking our medical supplies to take on board with us. Bandaids, Betadine, cotton balls etc.

The Australian Dollar is looking good compared to the USD. Diamond Princess uses USD, so at this stage we are smiling. I did buy some USD back in October when the exchange rate started to go up, so our shopping money is already locked in at that rate, however anything booked up on our credit card will be the latest rate....here is hoping its still up to parity.

I have a drawer full of clothes I think I will take away on both cruises and need to work out what to pack. I picked up a LCD torch at BFC which I will be useful in the inside cabin. (just in case the ship loses power!) We have also bought two new suitcases to take away with us. Our other ones weighed 7 kilos, empty....that leaves only 13 kilos of luggage.
The new suitcases are same size and weigh 3.5 kilos empty. Next week I will photo copy our new passports, current drivers licenses and credit cards. These will be used in case we lose them.

I can't believe Paul. This afternoon we were sitting down talking and he was suggesting we get a new camper to go bush camping and 4X4 driving next year when we have a 17 day cruise coming up in 2 weeks and going on a round the world cruise in May!!!! ...here he is talking about doing the Kimberley's again and more remote areas in northern Australia.!!!! When this is going to happen I don't know....2012? It's on the agenda to discuss it when we return from travelling around the world! I don't know if I have already experienced enough bull dust, flies, mosquitoes, snakes, hot sweaty weather.....ugh.

We have a new grandson arriving in January and I am looking forward to the new addition to our family. It will be interesting to see how much I will miss him when we are away for 104 nights....time will tell.

August 2010

As I mentioned in our last posting we were on the wait list for a Sun Princess Cruise from Perth to South East Asia. Unfortunately we didn't receive a phone call from our Travel Agent to announce we had been added to the passenger list. Bummer. Good news though, we had an email from friends we met on the Sapphire Princess nearly two years ago letting us know that they are sailing on the Diamond Princess from Singapore to Sydney in December. Well, we couldn't let this opportunity of catching up with them again pass, so off the our Travel Agent to join the cruise.

July 2010 update

We have been following 2010 World Cruise Blogs and also cruisecritic responses. Both of us are getting excited and we are 212 days away from sailing! tried to book on Sun Princess leaving Perth for Hong Kong, Vietnam,Thailand, Singapore but the bookings are full. We are on the waiting list for last minute cancellations. Here is hoping. Noticed the Dawn Princess missed the port of Dublin due to poor weather...I wonder if w will miss any on our cruise.

7th June 1st posting

Hello everyone, we have just paid our deposit for Dawn Princess 2011 World Cruise. We have been reading some people's blogs and are very excited with the prospect of doing this cruise. We have been reseaching the ports of call. In some circumstances we have had to look up the Atlas to see where they are and also borrow some books from our local library just to find a little bit of information about those ports. We have read Gaznjo's blog and have found it very funny and informative. They sound very much like us. We haven't started to collect any foriegn money as yet, maybe the AUD may go up to that 92c to USD, but will keep an eye on the markets. I (Linda) have bought today, a bar of Exit soap for those greasy stains. Just a little preparation for hand washing. I intend to take a bar of velvet soap for other hand washing. 21 days into our cruise we will be Elite and our laundry will be done for us. Yipee.......the last cruise we were on the Dawn Princess to Hawaii and our cabin was at the rear of the ship and of course all the laundries were at the front...so lots of walking and lugging washing and ironing through the ship.